Ghosts
by Princess Reinette
Summary: Quick look into the mind of Patrick Jane, and his thoughts on his family's death. Slight mention of a budding J/L relationship. Rated T for talk of death and implication of depression. Please Review!


**Bonjour! This is a quick look into the mind of Patrick Jane, according to moi. This is my first attempt at writing with these characters, so be sure to let me know what you think! Enjoy!**

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><p>Patrick Jane missed his family. A lot of things had become uncertain lately, but that simple fact was forever clear to him. He missed his old life. Lots of people did, he knew. Thousands of men and women out there wished that they could go back to how they were a few years previous, wishing that recent events could be forgotten and erased. He knew that what he was feeling was logical, and completely normal. Knowing didn't help anything, though.<p>

The former con-artist sighed resignedly into his shot glass as he knocked back yet another ounce of bourbon, and set it back down on the coffee table with a slight thud, too drunk and lost in his memories to care about accidentally breaking it. Work today had been filled with mind-numbing and quite frankly boring cases and had left him without the sense of fulfillment that usually let him cope with his memoires. Instead of going back to his apartment and falling onto his bed into a dreamless sleep, he found himself in the living room of his old house, seated on the couch with a bottle of the best, the ghosts of his wife and daughter his only company.

If this were his old life, Charlotte would be playing with her dolls right now. Her blond hair would be plaited lightly down her back, still damp from her bath, and she would be wearing her white nightgown that went all the way to the floor, because she said it made her feel like a grown-up. She would be making up stories right about now, coming up with new ways for the prince to marry the princess. Her voice would be soft, forcing Jane to strain to hear every word. But he would, because he loved her and she was so very, very precious to him. He wouldn't let her know he was listening, though, because then she might stop. Instead, he kept his eyes on the television sit-com and listened secretly to Charlotte's imagination running free.

His wife would be lying sideways along their light tan-colored couch, her dark curls resting in his lap. He would be stroking her hair lightly, only half concentrating on the way her silky locks felt wrapped around his fingers, entirely content with the way his life was in this moment, but still planning for their future together, a family. Angela would sigh happily every few moments, her eyelids shut over big brown eyes, completely at peace with the world.

And Patrick Jane would smile.

But this wasn't his old life, and so all he had were the ghosts. They wasn't something he could help, or change. They weren't something he wanted to get rid of. They were part of him now, just as much as they used to be. At first, they had hurt him, so badly. The two of them surrounded him, forced him to cry himself to sleep at night. Now, though, he had come to terms with their death, and, while he hadn't moved on, he had learned to let them help him, instead of hurt him. They were, and always would be, a part of him. His _family._ And that's how it should be. Forever.

He knew, though, that he would have to start doing some things differently, eventually. Lisbon and the rest of his team were beginning to worry now more than ever, now knowing him too well to be fooled by his smiling and happy demeanor. So he would have to come up with another way to trick them. It would wouldn't be that hard, really. With Van Pelt, all it would take would be a slight increase in his flirtation with their boss, and she would be happy to think he had finally moved on to someone in the realm of the living. Rigsby wouldn't question anything more than he had too, with a baby to worry about soon. Cho would be tricky, but not impossible.

But it was Teresa who worried him.

He had grown to care about her, however grudgingly, over the past few years. He had, remarkably, developed a bit of a conscience when it came to lying to her, of all people. So lying to her would be hard, but he would do it. No matter how much he might have grown to care for her or come to terms with the death of his small family, he wasn't ready to open up to her. He didn't know if he ever would be. He was a man of the past, and that man still missed his family.

And, at least for the moment, nothing would come before that, not even Teresa Lisbon.

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><p><strong>I have no idea if this is something worth continuing, but it may happen. I quite enjoyed writing for these characters! Please let me know what you thought about the actualy story, and if I should continue it or try to develop a different plot. <strong>

**Merci!**

**-Reinette**


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